


Carpe Noctem

by Palebluedot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: First Time, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, largely because s4 is a work in progress, rum and impending doom and chill, set vaguely before the inevitable big s4 showdown but it's not specified
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10017668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: "So, this could be...it,” he says, and his words hang, the way they always do when the air is still – when he stills it."What are you talking about?" James asks, though he senses that their thoughts are steered by the same tempest."Why, our last night on earth, of course,” Silver replies, spreading his hands in a dark sort of showmanship. “Who knows what fate has in store for us tomorrow?"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blanketed_in_stars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/gifts).



> Remember that time I sent you Skype paragraph fic and you said you'd leave kudos if you could?
> 
> Pay up, buddy.

The night is pitch, clinging tight to James's skin, dark as the sea that ripples and chants below the wide windows. Dawn's specter hovers somewhere below the horizon, and the weight of it tips the bottle once more over James's glass. Only a few more hours until – well. That's the question, isn't it? 

The door whimpers on its hinges, and James knows whose silhouette stands there before he ever hears the heavy, dragging gait. There's authority in those steps now, James muses, filling a second glass. There didn't used to be. It's a strangely lonely thought.  

Silver sits down lightly beside him, propping his crutch against the wall without a sound. He takes the offered drink, but only twists the glass around in his hands, stares into the dark cabin. James watches him, and wonders what he's come to say. Likely, it's something to do with tomorrow, perhaps a comment on the men's morale, some last-minute strategic suggestion. Then again, maybe he just came for a drink. But silence isn't like Silver, and James doesn't like the thought of that changing under the threat of a ruinous tomorrow, so watching turns to waiting. At last, Silver nods. Takes a sip. Turns over his shoulder so they are almost face to face. "So, this could be...it,” he says, and his words hang, the way they always do when the air is still – when he stills it.

"What are you talking about?" James asks, though he senses that their thoughts are steered by the same tempest.

"Why, our last night on earth, of course,” Silver replies, spreading his hands in a dark sort of showmanship. “Who knows what fate has in store for us tomorrow?" 

"Right," James says, and drains half his glass, because he's known Silver far too long not to recognize the warning signs of a speech.

On cue, Silver leans forward, conspiratorial, makes the space between them private, almost sacred. "In fact, the more I think about it, the more certain it seems that this time tomorrow, one or both of us will be dead." 

James's jaw clenches. The thought grates more, somehow, when it comes from Silver's lips. "And?" he presses, nevertheless.

"Well, it's gotten me thinking,” Silver says on a thoughtful sigh, dangerously near to hitting his stride. “Suppose this  _is_  our last night on earth. That makes these next few hours quite priceless. How would you want to spend them?"

"Quietly,” quips James, and it's a private sort of lie.

"Because it seems to  _me_ ," Silver presses on, shooting him a reproachful look, "that in the face of his imminent and violent oblivion, a man ought to do something...bold. Something to make him feel  _alive_.” A spark jumps off that last word, leaving the cabin all the darker when it fades.

James swallows. “Is that right?”

“Oh, yes,” says Silver, his voice melting into warm honey and oil in the dark. “On his very last night, when he has everything to live for, he should throw caution and doubt to the wind, and truly make the most of what precious little time he has left – soar just as close to the sun as he can before the sea swallows him whole.” Siren song echoes in his stage whisper, and James hears more than sees the sharp edge to that gleam in his eye –

And when the _fuck_ did his hand settle on James's _knee_?

Sirens, James remembers with a wrench, sing from a bed of bones. "Get to the fucking point," he spits.

The snake charmer act withers – for an instant, Silver's eyes betray surprise. "Come again?” he asks, testing the waters.

James hasn't yet decided whether he'll find them boiling. "You're after something. Out with it.”

Even in the dark, James can see Silver's cheeks flush. Flustered, James finds, is a fine look on him, perhaps because he so rarely wears it, perhaps because James likes it a little too much for his own good that it's in his power to make him burn. Despite it all, Silver meets the challenge, and hardly flinches. "I'm...merely suggesting that if there's anything you want to...do with anyone, then perhaps – perhaps now would be the time?" 

James glances down at his knee. "You're  _merely suggesting_  that you and I should fuck.” It almost isn't a question.

Silver shifts his weight, but doesn't move his hand. “...I don't suppose it worked?” Behind the uneasy smile he flashes, James can see him spinning together escape routes, excuses and sleights of hand, trying to work out how he can charm his way out of over-charming, because Silver will never stop knowing exactly how to lie. But, James realizes, he knows all of Silver's tells. They were hard-won, but in the end, he gave them up freely. He can't fool him anymore, and he knows it. 

And he asks if it _worked._

"Try it. See what happens,” James suggests, gruff as he can manage.

The flash of abject terror on Silver's face is one James has only ever seen in the eyes of drowning men, or new recruits fresh from their first fuck-up, and he grins into his rum in spite of himself. Silver catches him at it, James catches him looking, something irrevocable passes between their glances, and the game, then, is more or less up. "Well," Silver says slowly, and his eyes glow like lanterns in the moon-tipped dimness, "if I'm to die tomorrow, then what have I got to lose?" 

Movements dream-heavy, Silver takes James's glass from his hands, it clinks against his own when he sets the pair of them on the floor. His fingers trace embers in their wake where they ghost along James's jaw, and _Jesus_ , James isn't sure which of them he's giving time to run, but all told, both options are fucking stupid – it's rather abundantly clear how dreadful the pair of them are at knowing when to jump ship – so James mutters "For fuck's sake," surges forwards, and puts an end to the whole bloody business once and for all.

Silver hums a little  _mmph_  of surprise that buzzes warm between them. James smirks against his mouth, Silver nips at his bottom lip in some misguided attempt at retaliation, which James quells with a tug to his hair and a shove forwards that sends the pair of them into a fumbling free-fall, Silver's back hitting the cushioned bench with a muffled thud. When Silver arches up against him, body bent like his grin, James is forced to wonder if perhaps this was his plan all along – then nimble fingers pluck at the buttons on his coat with a pickpocket's precision and a madman's desperation, and James decides he really,  _really_  doesn't give a fuck whose plan this was, just so long as they see it through. 

And now Silver is shoving his coat from his shoulders – James pulls back, wrests his arms free – "The door, we should - "

A huff of laughter beneath him. "I locked it on my way in."

" _You_  – "

"Shit, I know," Silver grins, smug and rapturous. James's coat hits the floor, warm hands tug at the ties of his shirt. "Less talking," he breathes, and James has just enough time to think that he never expected to hear those words from those lips before Silver surges upwards, presses against him with a kiss that sears. Silence, it turns out, does not cripple him in the slightest. Without a word, Silver persuades and coaxes and pleads with him until James is helpless to refuse. He kisses him like tomorrow will never come, and when James feverishly hopes that it doesn't, it has much less to do with a fear of facing the day than it does with the softness of the long hair tangled around his fingertips, the clever hands skimming and scratching along his back, the hot breath stuttering against his neck.

The sunrise is deaf to his hopes. All the same, the amber light manages to disguise itself as welcome by weaving through Silver's hair, setting him aglow. And of course Silver wears it like the sun was made in his likeness, because there's not a role he can't steal, and of course he sits up and gathers his clothes, leaves both the blankets and the sunlight colder, because against the odds, the only role he's chosen is the one he never asked for, and the men will look to him today more than ever. Flint follows him, the two of them perched on the edge of the window seat like they sat there all night. Like nothing's changed.

Silver's brow knits together. “I don't know what's going to happen today,” he says, earnest, and although it's matter-of-fact, it sounds like a confession. He catches James's eye, and a light brushstroke of a smile gives itself away. “But that,” he declares, and it's soft, but it sounds like an order, because he was always going to give those, in the end, “had better not be the last time we do this.”

One more thing about John Silver – sometimes, just sometimes, he gets what he wants.

**Author's Note:**

> These characters evaded me for like a month and a half, but finally, at midnight on a day I definitely should not have been up at midnight, I pulled together something I could live with. Small victories.
> 
> Comments are love!


End file.
